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I don’t quite get this. I don’t have a TV and the only place that I’ve seen clips from this show are online. Is this guy kind of like Sacha Baron Cohen and the people who get sucked into these interviews think he’s for real?

I don’t precisely know how these sessions are set up. I understand that they tell people that they are from The Daily Show but not necessarily that they are a comedy show. Some people of course know but others don’t. I don’t think that the participants are acting according to a script. I think the clips are edited for comedic effect but not to make the people appear to say something that is opposite to what they meant.

The people who take part are usually anxious to get their message across or to just have the chance to appear on TV and so seem willing to take the risk of appearing foolish. Some time ago the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi advised her party colleagues not to appear on the show for fear of being made to look foolish.

As for the reporters like Jones, they are clearly playing a role, in order to get the maximum laughs.

It’s satire. The “reporter” is displaying the stupidity of the actions of others by setting up a similar situation, and taking their actions to the extreme. So, in this case, when politicians were criticized for having all-male panels to discuss issues that are mostly relevant to women, the “reporter” decided to have a panel of women–like the critics had demanded of the politicians–but to still ignore them, and to get a man’s opinion about them and what they say, to show that even though he listened to the critics, he was still unable to understand the heart of the problem–(in Jon Stewart’s mind) just like politicians would (likely) do.

In the US, most people are aware that the Daily Show will satirize one of the two sides, making them look bad. The people who go on the show, though, are often so convinced of the rightness of their position that they can’t conceive of themselves as being on the butt-end of the joke.

If you want the college/young vote, you have a better chance of getting your message to them via the Daily Show than other news stations. It’s all about marketing and it being a comedy show doesn’t really matter all that much.

I get Jones’ and Stewart’s point, I really do, but we need to toss the idea that any demographic that consists of more than one person — women, Blacks, Jews, men &c — is in any way understandable as monolithic.

The assumption makes for easy soundbites but hinders understanding: people are not atomic particles.

I do realize that it’s satire, it’s just not clear to me whether the participants blunder into these interviews, thinking it’s going to be serious, or they’re just going along with the joke in some instances.

It’s always amusing to me to watch which people “get it”, that they are being interviewed satirically, and which don’t. In this case with it being an entire group, you can see it play out in real time… the woman on the upper-left seemed to get the joke right away (she was smiling and rolling her eyes within the first few exchanges), whereas you could see the woman on the upper-right start seething almost immediately, and getting more and more pissed off.

I dunno if I would get it or not in such a situation. I’d like to think I’d get the joke, but then again, Poe’s Law and all…

@4 “I get Jones’ and Stewart’s point, I really do, but we need to toss the idea that any demographic that consists of more than one person — women, Blacks, Jews, men &c — is in any way understandable as monolithic”

Point well taken, generally the divergence within such “blocks” is greater than the divergence between them, but it seems that the whole point of the piece was to satirize the idea that the opinions and concerns of whole blocks of people could only be properly understood from the point of view of upper class white men.

That people are viewed as blocks results when the defining characteristic (gender, race, having a star on your belly, etc) is used to advantage or disadvantage the class. But this is the motor of politics so when we’re talking politics we’re talking blocks. It seems that individuals are only invoked as voters whose rights, privileges, security, privacy, etc are under threat and need protection either by or from the ruling class/party.